


Wildest

by Ayulsa (execharmonious)



Category: Final Fantasy VI
Genre: Esper Terra, F/F, TEAM SHIVA, Xeno
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-31
Updated: 2013-07-31
Packaged: 2017-12-22 00:51:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/906955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/execharmonious/pseuds/Ayulsa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is something of Terra that Celes cannot hold.</p><p>Written as part of the <em>Her Shining and Her Grace</em> ficlet series, but it turned out more M-rated than I'd planned for that collection, so I'm posting it separately.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wildest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Stealth_Noodle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stealth_Noodle/gifts).



> _...that oldest, wildest grace that horses have never had, that deer have only in a shy, thin imitation and goats in dancing mockery._
> 
> _And whether they mean my doom or not, I will... look at them, for a while._   
>  _\--The Last Unicorn_

The deeper she looked into Terra, the more contradictions she found.

Not lies, no, never lies; but things undeniable yet so evasive of her attempts to understand. As soon as she thought Terra was one thing, she turned around and became its opposite. It kept catching her off guard, delightfully, piercingly so, as if her opponent had bested her at the game of rapiers and left her breathless and heartsore, able only to wonder at her technique. She could not look at the girl these days without feeling dizzied by a marvel beyond her power to grasp.

And yet she could not help but look at her. Lying there beside Celes, limbs splayed coltishly, lithe frame soft and sleek with fur, she was a challenge to the senses, one that demanded a response. Maned in champagne-pink and rose and cream, each strand glowing with its own faint light, she straddled the line between goddess and monster, feral and sublime. The fangs designed to draw blood protruding from small pink lips aflush with it; the curved, dark talons set into slight and girlish hands; the eyes so wide and searching, their pupils slitted like a beast's; all of it defied categories, made heads spin as they tried and failed to decipher what they were looking at. Some fled from the uncertainty, others delighted in it, but none could fail to be moved. 

Celes' response was to be magnetised, cold hands drawn to warm hips as if they belonged there, the instinctive motion of a sword to its sheath. And there, the contradictions again: the way Terra stirred and stretched and arched into her touch was half feline languor, half goddessly grace, and the sounds she made when Celes touched her _here_ and _here_ could have been purrs or the humming of slowed-down light. Slim fingers wrapped around her wrist, tight as a snake's coils, hot as the sun's kiss, pulling her down to Terra's exposed throat: a submission, a sacrifice, she didn't know which, but she accepted it with lips and tongue and teeth and fingertips brushed over bruise-dark skin, which healed even as she watched.

And then Terra kissed her back and reared and tossed and flowed through her touch like flame, and keeping her hold was like riding or being ridden, like straining to see through Esper-glow as she called down something greater than herself, as hooves scored the earth and silver-white mane whipped around her with the force of a driving storm. The air was heavy with magic, hot and sweet, pressing in on her, and she let it devour her as Terra devoured her, quicksilver-fast and lightning-fierce and breaking her down until she was nothing, falling and fading under mercury fingers and eyes like nightfall and a spreading blanket of fire.

Until she was darkness, and Terra the only star, the only compass point guiding her slowly, groggily back to the world of men, and Espers, and stranger, more liminal beasts.

Entangled in fur and warmth and sheets, she looked over at Terra, sated yet hardly fatigued by the chase, and knew she would never catch her, not truly. There would always be something of her, no matter how close they became, that neither she nor anyone else could touch.

Somehow, given everything, she thought that might be for the best after all.


End file.
